Australian Agrifood Data Exchange (OzAg Data Exchange): Deliver an interconnected data highway for Australia's AgriFood value chain - Proof of concept
Accelerating the adoption of digital technology on Queensland prawn farms
Fish and Chips Awards 2021
Throughout 2017-2019 FRDC established the Fish and Chip awards as a way to create debate around seafood, raise its profile and use this as a vehicle to promote information about sustainability, fisheries management and the R&D being undertaken to underpin it. The approach worked very well generating more than 90,000 votes, hundreds of media articles and millions of consumer views of that media coverage.
There is a need to ensure the base developed in the first three years is not lost and that SIA continues to build on it and centralise consumer-facing activities under the industry’s brand, Great Australian Seafood.
SIA will continue to deliver retailers, consumers and media information on the sustainability of Australian seafood, underutilised species, FishNames, CoOL, along with any other relevant R&D and extension.
In this initial year of SIA management, we will investigate the opportunities for sponsorship of the program and develop a timeline for a self-sustaining model.
There is also a need for SIA to demonstrate how an activity such as foodservice and consumer awards can deliver tangible results. To do this, SIA is looking to capture consumer opinion, engage retailers and measure behaviour.
Discussion Papers on seafood traceability and labelling
Energy use and carbon emissions assessments in the Australian fishing and aquaculture sectors: Audit, self-assessment and guidance tools for footprint reduction
Aquatic animal welfare – a review of guidance documents and legislation
The aquaculture, commercial and recreational fisheries sectors along with the FRDC have recognised the need to continue the work of the Australian Animal Welfare Strategy (AAWS) Aquatic Animal Working Group (AAWG) (2005-2013). In September 2018, the FRDC funded a workshop to review the activities of the AAWS-AAWG and for the industry peak bodies to prioritize knowledge gaps for future R&D. One of the recommendations from the workshop funded by FRDC 2017-221 was to conduct a stocktake of the current industry processes and legislation that relate to aquatic animal welfare.
The initial stocktake was completed in 2006 by Dr Paul Hardy-Smith and colleagues. The aquatic animal welfare landscape has significantly changed since 2006. States and Territories are developing animal welfare legislation and guidelines that either specifically addresses aquatic animal welfare considerations and/or includes aquatic animals (e.g. fish, crustaceans) under the definition of “animal” in the legislation. This changing landscape has implications for “in-field” practices (e.g. methods used to kill aquatic animals) and other practices (e.g. transportation of live aquatic animals).
It is critically important that the commercial wild capture, aquaculture and recreational fishing sectors understand the implications of this changing landscape. These sectors need to ensure their own guidelines or codes of conduct are addressing the regional requirements and if they are not, then it is important that they are assisted in addressing changes to protect themselves. It is important that aquatic animal welfare requirements in no way place human welfare at risk. There is a need to promote the changes to industry practice that have positive outcomes for aquatic animal welfare and to ensure industry practices are keeping within the welfare requirements of that State or Territory.
Our project will comprehensively document and analyse the legislative framework as it applies to aquatic animal welfare in each State and Territory. The project will identify key areas of concern for commercial wild capture, aquaculture and recreational sectors which will be used to assist in developing priority case studies.
Report
Aquatic animals, like all animals, play an important role in maintaining a healthy environment. Many aquatic animals are valuable sources of nutrition for humans and other animals and contribute significantly to Australia’s primary industry in both domestic and international trade. Other aquatic animals have cultural and economic importance to our tourism and recreational industries. For aquatic animals, as with other animals, better health through improved welfare can increase productivity and can have beneficial impacts on sustainability.
The last review of aquatic animal welfare arrangements in Australia was conducted in 2006. Community understanding of animal welfare, including aquatic animal welfare, has increased since then. Having a sound understanding of animal welfare laws and any changes that may be happening to those laws is important to industries that work with aquatic animals.